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It’s a tale as old as time. Man sees electric bike advertisement touting 50-mile range. Man buys e-bike. Man’s first ride gets 25 miles before the battery’s charge dwindles. Man is justifiably disappointed.

So what gives? Why does it seem like you can never trust the range numbers that the electric bike makers tell us?

The short answer is that it seems that way because that’s the way it is. You simply can’t trust the range figure printed on an electric bicycle’s marketing material. At least not most of the time.

There are several good reasons for this, so let’s break them down.

No standard for range testing for e-bikes

First of all, e-bikes aren’t like cars. There aren’t any standards for battery range testing on e-bikes. It’s not like the “EPA-rated 32 mpg” or “NEDC-tested 250 miles of range” you’ll see in car ads.

Range ratings for e-bikes aren’t determined by outside agencies. They are determined by the bike makers themselves. In the best case, the printed distance figures come from real-world range testing. Some companies like Aventon and Lectric eBikes have stepped up with real-world range data on their sites for each level of pedal assist or throttle riding. That’s the best case. But in the worst case, some companies just give us numbers that they pull out of a hat or theorize that their bike can probably achieve.

Which companies are which? Without hard data displayed on the company’s site, it’s hard to know. That’s the problem. Unless a company puts real-world testing data out there, we’re left to guess.

lerctric ebikes xpedition dual battery

Range varies WIDELY based on a number of factors

This is actually the single largest reason that you almost never actually achieve the range quoted by the e-bike manufacturer. There is a huge variance in the real world battery range of an e-bike on a single charge. There are literally dozens of factors that have significant impacts on range.

Even if an e-bike company wanted to give one number as the ultimate, end all and be all, certified range of their e-bike – a number that they are confident you can achieve – they simply wouldn’t be able to do it. It just depends on too many factors.

radRunner passengers
Carrying a passenger (or two)? That’ll ding your range

It’s amazing how many factors can have a measurable impact on e-bike range.

Are your tires low on air or pumped to the max? Are you riding uphill or downhill? Tailwind or headwind? Brake rub? Crouched or sitting up tall? Is the road wet? Did you eat a big lunch? Have you eaten big lunches for the last 30 years? What gear are you in? What power level are you in? Knobby or smooth tires? Are you wearing a backpack or carrying cargo on a rack or basket? Any passengers with you? Are you riding on asphalt? Concrete? Dirt? Gravel? Sand? The list goes on and on.

Depending on the answers to those questions, the exact same electric bike could travel 15 miles or 60 miles on a single battery charge. Yeah, it’s wild.

Many people expect e-bike ranges to be more repeatable, similar to car mileage. But then again, consider that unlike cars, which often outweigh their drivers by 20 to 1, you probably outweigh your bike by 3 or 4 to 1. So changes in you or your environment have a much bigger impact on range than they do for other larger vehicles likes cars and trucks.

All of these factors make it harder for e-bike companies to offer a realistic range, and so they usually test for the best-case scenario. That means a lightweight rider (often listed at 150 lb., even though the average American adult female and male each weigh 170 and 200 lb., respectively) riding on a pancake flat and smooth surface with ultra-high air pressure in the tires and with the bike set into its lowest power mode. It’s not “cheating,” assuming they provide the real test data. It’s just putting their best pedaling foot forward. But in the real world, most of us won’t be riding in the same ideal conditions. So the “maximum” range that most e-bike companies quote simply aren’t realistic for most of us.

aventon level 2 review e-bike

Throttle versus pedal assist range

This is another major factor affecting range. Any Europeans reading this, you poor things can ignore this section since your governments don’t believe you can be trusted with throttles. For the Americans, Canadians, Australians, and civil-disobeying Europeans still here with me, listen up.

The general rule of thumb is that throttle riding will nearly halve your range compared to pedal assist. That’s why most e-bike companies will list their maximum range based on pedal assist. When you see an e-bike listed as having a “50-mile range,” that’s almost certainly the pedal assist range. The throttle range is probably closer to 25-30 miles, depending on conditions. A true 50-mile throttle-only range would usually require having a battery of at least 1,300 Wh, or around twice the size of an average e-bike battery.

Some companies like Rad Power Bikes are pretty good about listing a range of ranges (get it?) instead of a single number. For example, they tell us that the RadRunner 3 Plus’s range is “Estimated 25-45+ miles per charge (40-72+ km)” in the specs section of the product page, though they’re still guilty of the slightly misleading “Up to 45 miles per charge” phrase in larger font on the main page.

How can you know an electric bike’s ‘real’ range?

There’s a messy, overgeneralized rule of thumb that I created to quickly judge approximate bike range. But be warned: It requires a small amount of math. Don’t worry though, you can handle it.

At 20 mph, my messy rule of thumb is 25 Wh/mi for throttle riding and 15 Wh/mi for pedal assist riding. This is for a decently powerful level – we’re not talking Eco Mode or Level 1 pedal assist here. At very low-power pedal assist where the rider does most of the work, it is possible to even achieve closer to 5 Wh/mi.

For anyone who uses a more sensical system of measurement, that means when riding at 32 km/h, you can generally expect somewhere around 15 Wh/km on throttle and 9 Wh/km on pedal assist, though it can drop as low as 3 Wh/km on really low power pedal assist.

So to use my rule of thumb, simply divide the watt-hour capacity (Wh) of the battery by my efficiency numbers and you’ll get the rough range. An e-bike like the RadRunner 3 Plus mentioned above with a 624 Wh battery should get roughly 624 Wh ÷ 25 Wh/mi = 25 miles of range on throttle-only riding. In sensical measurements, that’s 624 Wh ÷ 15 Wh/km = 41 km. That number actually aligns nicely with Rad’s published figures. Go figure.

radrunner 3 plus battery

Like I said though, this is a rough approximation. It can vary based on many factors. If you’re a heavy rider, you might even use slightly higher constants than I mentioned, such as 30 Wh/mi instead of 25 Wh/mi. Other factors like terrain and tire width make a big impact on this guesstimate system as well.

For science, I once took an e-bike with a teeny tiny 180 Wh battery on a long ride at the lowest possible power setting and with significant muscle effort on my part. I got a range of 56 miles (90 km), or close to 3 Wh/mi. It was grueling, but it showed what is possible, and how companies can get away with claiming sky-high ranges that may be possible, even if unlikely.

So sure, my generalized rule of thumb above uses fuzzy numbers. But they aren’t anywhere near as fuzzy as the ratings from most e-bike manufacturers.

rad power bikes battery

In conclusion, I don’t intend to claim that there is malice on the part of most companies that market e-bikes. Their goal isn’t to mislead. They’re just caught in an unfortunate system where people want a short and pretty answer to what is under the surface actually a long and ugly question, “How far does it go on a charge?”

So until people are prepared to receive a table of data in response to that question, companies are basically forced to choose between giving an unimpressive albeit more honest range spectrum like, “It can go 20-45 miles per charge,” or to just give the rosier answer of “It can go 45 miles.” With millions of dollars on the line, you can guess which one they prefer to choose.

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Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more

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Podcast: Trump/GOP go after EV/solar, Tesla, Ford, GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more

In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss Trump’s Big Beautiful bill becoming law and going after EVs and solar, Tesla, Ford, and GM EV sales, Electrek Formula Sun, and more

Today’s episode is brought to you by Bosch Mobility Aftermarket—A global leader and trusted provider of automotive aftermarket parts. To celebrate Amazon Prime Day July 8th through 11th, Bosch Mobility is offering exclusive savings on must-have auto parts and tools. Learn more here.

The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.

As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.

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After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:

We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.

Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:

Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:

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Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller

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Tesla prototype sparks speculation: a Model Y, maybe slightly smaller

A new Tesla prototype was spotted again, reigniting speculation among Tesla shareholders, even though it’s likely just a Model Y, potentially a bit smaller, and the upcoming stripped-down, cheaper version.

Over the last few months, there have been several sightings of what appears to be a Model Y with camouflage around Tesla’s Fremont factory.

It sparked a lot of speculation about it being the new “affordable” compact Tesla vehicle.

There’s confusion in the Tesla community around Tesla’s upcoming “affordable” vehicles because CEO Elon Musk falsely denied a report last year about Tesla’s “$25,000” EV model being canceled.

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The facts are that Musk canceled two cheaper vehicles that Tesla was working on, commonly referred as “the $25,000 Tesla” in early 2024. Those vehicles were codenamed NV91 and NV92, and they were based on the new vehicle platform that Tesla is now reserving for the Cybercab.

Instead, Musk noticed that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y production lines were starting to be underutilized as the Company faced demand issues. Therefore, Tesla canceled the vehicles program based on the new platform and decided to build new vehicles on Model 3/Y platform using the same production lines.

We previously reported that these electric vehicles will likely look very similar to Model 3 and Model Y.

In recent months, several other media reports reinforced this, and Tesla all but confirmed it during its latest earnings call, when it stated that it is “limited in how different vehicles can be when built on the same production lines.”

Now, the same Tesla prototype has been spotted over the last few days, and it sent the Tesla shareholders community into a frenzy of speculations:

Electrek’s Take

As we have repeatedly reported over the last year, the new “affordable” Tesla “models” coming are basically only stripped-down Model 3 and Model Y vehicles.

They might end up being a little smaller by a few inches, and Tesla may use different model names, but they will be extremely similar.

If this is it, which is possible, you can see it looks almost exactly like a Model Y.

It’s hard to confirm if it’s indeed smaller because of the angle of the vehicle compared to the other Model Ys, but it’s not impossible that the wheelbase is a bit smaller – although it’s hard to confirm.

Either way, the most significant changes for these stripped-down, more affordable “models” are expected to be cheaper interior materials, like textile seats instead of vegan leather, no heated or ventilated seats standard, no rear screen, maybe even no double-panned acoustic glass and a lesser audio system.

As previously stated, the real goal of these new variants, or models, is to lower the average sale price in order to combat decreasing demand and maintain or increase the utilization rate of Tesla’s current production lines, which have been throttled down in the last few years to now about 60% utilization.

If this trend continues, Tesla would find itself in trouble and may even have to close its factories.

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Ethereum is powering Wall Street’s future. The crypto scene at Cannes shows how far it’s come

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Ethereum is powering Wall Street's future. The crypto scene at Cannes shows how far it's come

Ethereum succeeded beyond anyone's expectations, says network co-founder Vitalik Buterin at EthCC

CANNES — Wall Street’s new plumbing is being built on Ethereum and this week its architects took over the same French Riviera villas and red carpet venues that host the Cannes Film Festival in May.

The Ethereum Community Conference, or EthCC, took over the beachside town that was swarming with crypto founders, developers, and some of the institutional giants now building atop the infrastructure.

The crypto elite climbed the iconic red-carpeted steps of the Palais des Festivals — a cinematic landmark now repurposed as the stage for Ethereum’s flagship European event.

“The atmosphere this year was palpable in Cannes,” said Bettina Boon Falleur, the powerhouse behind EthCC for the past seven years. “The prestige of the location, combined with the quality of talks, has reinforced Ethereum’s stature and purpose in the wider ecosystem.”

Private parties sprawled across cliffside estates and exclusive resorts, but the conversations were less about price action and more about the blockchain’s evolving role as the back-end of global finance.

EthCC, now in its eighth year, has tracked Ethereum’s trajectory from scrappy experiment to institutional backbone.

“That impact was unmistakable this year,” Falleur said. “From Robinhood embracing decentralized finance infrastructure via Arbitrum to local governments like the City of Cannes exploring deeper integration with the crypto economy.”

Indeed, one of the boldest moves came this week from Robinhood, which became the first publicly traded U.S. company to launch tokenized stocks on-chain.

At a product showcase held inside a Belle Époque mansion overlooking the sea, Robinhood unveiled a sweeping new crypto strategy — including the ability for European users to trade tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs via Arbitrum, a Layer 2 network built on Ethereum.

The announcement helped push Robinhood stock past $100 for the first time, capping off a week of fresh all-time highs and a more than 30% rally since being snubbed by the S&P 500 during a recent rebalance.

Inside the Palais des Festivals, ETHCC draws founders, developers, and institutions into the same halls that host the world’s biggest film premieres — this time, for the future of finance.

MacKenzie Sigalos

Ether, the token native to the Ethereum blockchain, was up nearly 6% on the week and several public equities tied to the blockchain have rallied alongside it.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, a company that mines bitcoin, gained more than 1,200% since announcing it would make ether its primary treasury reserve asset. Bit Digital, which recently exited bitcoin mining to “become a pure play” ethereum staking and treasury company, gained more than 34% this week. And SharpLink Gaming, which added more than $20 million in ether to its balance sheet this week, jumped more than 28% on Thursday.

Ether ETF inflows are rising again too — a sign that institutional investors are warming back up.

Ether is still down more than 20% this year and lags far behind bitcoin in market cap and adoption. But funds tracking ETH have seen two straight months of mostly net inflows, according to CoinGlass data. Still, ether ETFs total just $11 billion — compared to $138 billion in bitcoin ETFs.

Institutions aren’t betting on Ethereum for hype — they’re betting on infrastructure.

Even as prices stall and the network faces headwinds from slower base layer revenues and faster rivals like Solana, the momentum is shifting toward utility.

“Ethereum is getting plugged into these core transactional systems,” Paul Brody, global blockchain leader at EY, told CNBC on the sidelines of EthCC. “Investors, savers, people moving money — they are going to start shifting from some of the older mechanisms of doing this into Ethereum ecosystems that can do these transactions faster, cheaper, but also very importantly, with significant new functionality attached to it.”

Crypto founders and developers climb the iconic red-carpeted steps of the Palais des Festivals — a familiar backdrop for the Cannes Film Festival, now repurposed for Ethereum’s flagship European event.

MacKenzie Sigalos

Deutsche Bank recently announced it’s building a tokenization platform on zkSync — a faster, cheaper blockchain built on top of Ethereum — to help asset managers issue and manage tokenized funds, stablecoins, and other real-world assets while meeting regulatory and data protection requirements.

Coinbase and Kraken are also racing to own the crossover between traditional stocks and crypto.

Coinbase has filed with the SEC to offer trading in tokenized public equities, a move that would diversify its revenue stream and bring it into more direct competition with brokerages like Robinhood and eToro.

Kraken announced plans to offer 24/7 trading of U.S. stock tokens in select overseas markets.

BlackRock‘s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL — launched on Ethereum last year — offers qualified investors on-chain access to yield with redemptions settled in USDC in real time.

Stablecoins, meanwhile, continue to serve as the backbone of Ethereum’s financial layer.

Circle’s USDC — the second-largest stablecoin — still settles around 65% of its volume on Ethereum’s rails. According to CoinGecko’s latest “State of Stablecoins” report, Ethereum accounts for nearly 50% of stablecoin market share.

“The builders and contributors at EthCC aren’t chasing the next bull run,” Falleur said, “they’re laying the groundwork to make Ethereum home for the next billion users.”

Even as newer blockchains tout faster speeds and lower fees, Ethereum is proving its staying power as a trusted network.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, told CNBC in Cannes that there is an assumption that institutions only care about scale and speed — but in practice, it’s the opposite.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin delivers a keynote at ETHCC, laying out the network’s next steps — and its values test — as institutional adoption accelerates.

EthCC

“A lot of institutions basically tell us to our faces that they value Ethereum because it’s stable and dependable, because it doesn’t go down,” he said.

Buterin added that firms often ask about privacy and other long-term features — the kinds of concerns that institutions, he said, “really value.”

Tomasz Stańczak, the new co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, said institutions are choosing Ethereum for the same core reasons.

“Ten years without stopping for a moment. Ten years of upgrades, with a huge dedication to security and censorship resistance,” he said.

He added that when institutions send orders to the market, they want to be “absolutely sure that their order is treated fairly, that nobody has preference, that the transaction actually is executed at the time when it’s delivered.”

Those guarantees have become increasingly valuable as stablecoins and tokenized assets move into the mainstream.

The Senate’s recent passage of the GENIUS Act, along with Circle’s IPO, gave the industry a regulatory tailwind and helped reinforce Ethereum’s role as the infrastructure layer for tokenized finance.

Ethereum’s core values — neutrality, security, and censorship resistance — are emerging as competitive advantages.

The real test now is whether Ethereum can scale without losing its values.

“We don’t just want to succeed,” Buterin said from the mainstage of the Palais this week. “We want to be something that is worthy of succeeding.”

He said the hope is that future generations will look back and see a network that truly delivered openness, freedom, and permissionless access to the masses.

White-clad guests dance poolside at the rAAVE party in Cannes.

MacKenzie Sigalos

But the week didn’t end in the conference halls, it closed with tradition. On the balcony of Villa Montana, overlooking the Bay of Cannes, the rAAVE party lit up.

White-clad guests sipped cocktails as the DJ spun by the pool, haze curling from smoke machines.

This year, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov and DeFi icon Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, stood atop the balcony overlooking the crowd and the light-dotted skyline of Cannes.

It was a fitting snapshot of the momentum behind Ethereum’s institutional rise and symbolic of Web3’s shift from niche experiment to financial mainstay.

WATCH: Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev explains ‘dual purpose’ behind trading platform’s new crypto offerings

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev explains 'dual purpose' behind trading platform's new crypto offerings

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